Saturday, August 13, 2011

From the Ashes of the Journalist Rises a New Hero

The public has always enjoyed a paradoxical relationship with industrial journalism. Seen concurrently as both wielding the legitimate and only arm of authority in establishing and maintaining a public discursive sphere; yet also lawless, “yellow” and corrupt – an institution founded on, and complicit in the reproduction of, systemic exclusion, questionable morality, fear-mongering and public panic, and advertising disguised as content (and with it, advertising filtering content)1.

All the President's Men (1976), directed by Alan J. Pakula (source)

The period captured on film in All the President’s Men (1976), in which the role of the Fourth Estate was immortalised, worshipped and viewed by many to be the necessary gatekeepers of a democratic society, demarks the articulation of the journalist as hero myth2. The future was indeed bright, and the journalist brandished the torch to herald in a new era of government transparency, public accountability and global consciousness3.

Disenchantment and fatigue with an institution that many believe holds only a tenuous claim to truth-telling has to a large extent deteriorated the heroic-journalist trope4. Now, we are told, the journalist as hero is dead5, along with the ingrained mythology that bound together society: somebody is looking out for us, somebody has the courage to tell the truth, somebody has the resources and the reach to do so6.

Skip forward to 2011. 21-year-old DJ, Leon Piers, began the Twitter feed @BristolRiots and took it upon himself to launch a guerrilla-journalism campaign amidst the London Riots in retaliation to the rumours and fear-mongering in the traditional media. Armed with his bicycle and mobile phone, he and his friends rushed to the streets, tweeting short snippets of accurate, unbiased and verified information about the city’s situation, helping police, firefighters and citizens alike. He was lauded as a hero.

Gadaffi Expose Video - An act of citizen journalism filmed by Mohammed Nabbous (source)

Mohammed Nabbous, described as “the face of Libyan citizen journalism”, acted as a primary contact for Western journalists during the Libyan revolution. Utilising social media platforms like YouTube, he posted exclusive videos from a citizen’s perspective, exposing the horrors Gadaffi’s troops enacted against Benghazi rebels. He was named a hero of citizen journalism.

Strate asserts “it is through communication that we come to know our heroes, and consequently, different kinds of communication will result in different kinds of heroes"7. It is here where Editor Zed's topic of investigation lies: the intersection of citizen journalism with social media and wiki-technology, and if, and how, a new type of hero can emerge, like the phoenix, from the ashes of journalism8.

1. Simons, Margaret (2007), 'The gift economy and the future', The Content Makers: Understanding the Media in Australia, Camberwell, Victoria, Penguin, pp. 204-217.
2. Drucker, Susan and Cathcart, Robert (1994), American Heroes in a Media Age, NJ, Hampton Press.
3. Brucker, Barbara (1980), 'The journalist as popular hero, or: Up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's Clark Kent',Thesis Dissertation, Bowling Green State University.
4. Roggenkamp, Karen (2005), 'Journalist as hero: Richard Harding Davis and the cult of the reporter in 1980s America in narrating the news', New Journalism and the Literary Genre in Late Nineteenth-Century American Newspapers and Fiction, Kent, Ohio, Kent State University Press, pp. 48-53.
5. Hanson, Christopher (1996), 'Where have all the heroes gone?', Columbia Journalism Review, Vol. 34, No. 6, pp. 45-48.
6. Flew, Terry and Wilson, Jason (2010), 'Journalism as social networking: The Australian "youdecide" project and the 2007 federal election', Journalism, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 131-147.
7. Strate, Lance (1994), 'Heroes: A communication perspective', American Heroes in a Media Age,  NJ, Hampton Press, p. 15.
8. Alexander, Cuthbert (2005), 'Hope for a society without heroes', Proceedings of the Media Ecology Association, Vol. 6, pp. 1-9.

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